“I see. In that case, I can’t wait to meet her.”
“Nor I,” added Reardon.
Embrey escorted Billy to the B-deck hatchway, then glanced back. The reverence these crewmen seemed to have for their female captain was not something he’d encountered before. Striking. Intriguing. And the officer had just referred to her as “amazing”? Just who the deuce was she?
Chapter 6
Embrey and the boy looked so snug together in their nest of windproof jackets and blankets in a quiet corner of the fo’c’sle on C-deck, Cecil didn’t want to wake them. It had been a long double-day spread across two seasons and two epochs, and dusk was beginning to fall. But he couldn’t rest without setting the others’ minds at rest. He must at least give the survivors something to hope for.
Then he would figure out when they were, and why the differentiator had failed to locate 1901. Indeed, the latter was the most pressing concern of all, for if he couldn’t harness that power, if he was not its master, he might never get to find Lisa and Edmond.
He wrapped himself in a cotton blanket and then snatched a few spam ration tins from the supplies Djimon had given them. If the refugees ashore needed more, he would solicit Tangeni for aid right away. He reckoned Embrey might do that if he were awake, and for the time being, Cecil chose to model himself on his young blond comrade-a man of impeccable moral fibre. People needn’t see the real Cecil Reardon, the “shadow of a man confined to the rafters of a sad existence,” as one ex-colleague had described him in the Times last year.
He stole ashore and made his way along the embankment toward Bridge Street. Prolonged, grinding bird caws drew his gaze skyward, but all he saw were the silhouettes of bat-like wings slicing through the gloaming high above. Impossible to classify. In the meantime, he figured the overturned tri-wheeler and its ice cream trailer might make a useful haulage vehicle if the group needed to gather lumber for his furnace or hunt for food.
The survivors had lit a fire on the corner of Parliament Street and Bridge Street, and were roasting meat on makeshift grills.
“I say-dig in, old chap.” The nearest gentleman righted a wicker chair on the pavement and patted the seat for Cecil. “You’re the lostest thing we’ve seen for hours. Where the deuce have you been?”
“On the airship over there, with-”
“The darkies, we know. Never been right ones for mixing with civilized folk, our African brothers. Nothing against them, mind you, they’re damn good in a scrap, I hear, and they’re working wonders over there in Benguela. You know them personally, sir?”
“Not before tonight, but I can vouch for them one and all. They’ve shown us every kindness.”
“Hear! Hear!” an inordinately tall, thin man supping a glass of brandy joined in. “Let’s invite our Air Corps friends over. Seeing as we’re all stuck here, wherever the devil here is, let us at least start off on the right foot.”
“I’ll second that,” another man bellowed from behind the flames.
“You’d second the plagues of Egypt if you were bloody Pharaoh,” shouted another.
“An’ goin’ off your fizzog, Moses tested a few of ’em on you first.”
Laughter roared around the campfire, and Cecil could hardly believe that earlier the same day, London’s roots had been ripped up around this very spot. These men, many of them undoubtedly members of the gentlemen’s club, seemed to be taking it all in their strides. Or was it merely Dutch courage? He declined a silver hip flask containing what smelled like whisky.
“Do any of you blokes know what happened? The airship crew is understandably bemused. Some fainted with the shock. Have you any ideas?” Cecil tested.
“None of us blokes had a rotten clue.” The beanpole wiped his nose with a handkerchief. “But the lady here seems to have put two and two together rather ingeniously-says the fellow responsible is probably dead. What was that name again? Rourke? Rankin?”
“Reardon,” came a reply through the flames. Cecil recognized Miss Polperro’s voice immediately, that schoolmarm abruptness sending a shiver down his spine. Why had it not occurred to him she and her lickspittle cronies would still be in the vicinity? Ah, hell. Of course the one person who could blot his copybook had to be here waiting with her poisonous agenda. He still had time to sneak away to the ship before she saw his face. Time to regroup, to try another tact. But what excuse could he give? What pressing “And your name, sir?” the first man asked innocently.
“My name?” Um…er…hell.
“Aye.”
“Cecil.”
“Glad to know you, Cecil.” The man loosened his bowtie and shirt collar and then shook hands. “Tomorrow we’re heading over to this Reardon’s factory, see if we can’t put our heads together and figure out what went wrong. Miss Polperro put it nicely. ‘Every action has an equal and opposite reaction.’ Darned clever.”
Cecil scoffed. “I think you’ll find that was Newton.”
He shrank to nothing as soon as the words tripped from his lips. The woman sprang up and rushed around the fire, probably to confirm her suspicions. Peering over her thick-rimmed spectacles, she gave a sly smirk. “It’s Reardon. He tried to trick you all. His name is Cecil all right-Professor Cecil Reardon. He’s the one responsible for all this.”
Another man yelled, “Quick, grab him before he gets away!”
“Whoa! Whoa! I’m not going anywhere. What are you talking about?” He leapt to his feet and backed away from the angry mob, hands out in submission. This could easily turn ugly if he did try to escape. Every instinct tugged at him to flee, but his stubborn brain would not relent. These people needed someone to blame, that was all. After he’d explained himself, they would see reason. “Take your seats and I’ll-”
Several furious voices erupted. “String him up!”
“What? That’s insane. ”
“We’re not the ones who buggered up time. Let him dangle!”
“You idiots don’t know what you’re doing!”
“No, leave him be.” Miss Polperro’s shrill voice barely registered through the cacophony. “We need him to undo what he’s done.”
Their frenzy would not abate. He kicked and punched at a dozen crazies while they manhandled him off his feet and carried him like a trophy sacrifice to the nearest lamppost. “Hand me that rope-Okay, good and tight-Don’t throttle him yet, haul him up first-That’s it, round the bastard’s neck-Meddle with God’s laws? You can argue the toss with him after you swing! — Loop it over, Carswell, that’s the way-You three, help me pull on this end-Good one, Delaney, he earned that fist-Now, on three…
“One…two… three. ”
The coarse loop tightened, dug into his windpipe. He could neither gasp nor scream. His fingers couldn’t get between the rope and his Adam’s apple. A sickening pressure squeezed his tongue from his mouth and his eyeballs up into his brain. His head threatened to explode like an over pumped hydrogen balloon.
Two gunshots rang out.
His feet slapped the pavement and he crumpled in a heap, dazed.
“Back off or we’ll see if Whig blood really does run red. That means you, Carswell.” The voice sounded like Embrey’s, but where had he A terrible roar unlike anything he’d ever heard flooded Cecil’s gasping brain. He coughed, curled himself into a ball on a scrunched tablecloth. Again the roar, this time followed by the dull clap of shoes running in every direction.
“What the hell was that?” someone cried.
“It came from the forest!”
“Everyone get indoors, whatever it is.”
Weak hands grappled with his limp shoulder, unable to lift him.
